Good Morning Crasstalk. Here are your headlines.
Two American hikers who were imprisoned in Iran for espionage have returned home after 781 days in captivity. Shane M. Bauer and Joshua F. Fattal arrived back in the United States yesterday and reported that they tried to set a strict regime for themselves to help them maintain their sanity during their imprisonment. Both hikers stated that they had broken no laws on their hiking trip and claimed their imprisonment was politically motivated.
Three inventors are working on a Kickstarter to produce a new bicycle with a new lighting system to make biking at night safer. Kent Frankovich, Adam Pettler, and Jim Houk are hoping to bring their Revolights prototype to the market by the spring of 2012.
The Libyan National Transitional Council has reported that they have unearthed the graves of more than 1200 prisoners who were killed in a massacre by the Gaddafi regime in 1996. Family members have begun to arrive at Abu Salim prison as the exhumation of remains gets under way. Let’s all hope their is a special place in Hell for people who bring this kind of grief into the world.
Here’s a great article from the Smithsonian about tracking the ancestors of the Indians who first greeted Christopher Columbus. The Taíno Indians had a civilization that started in 400 BCE and lost as much as 85% of their population in the century after Columbus arrived.
Let’s start off the week with something happy. Here’s a video of 7 year old Drew Champagnie receiving an award for his quick thinking when his mother had a seizure last week. The young Brooklyn resident called 911 and did a great job working with the dispatcher until help arrived.
